Customer Success Rep

A note from Tom, who started this

Pepper Pong wasn't born in a boardroom. It was hacked together in a garage out of scrap parts from other games and a weird collection of foam balls. It wasn't a product. It wasn't even called Pepper Pong. It was just The Game, and we played it everywhere.

We loved ping pong. Then ping pong got old. Too serious, too breakable, too loud, too bro. Coffin-sized table. Busted balls. Ten minutes of interest and ten years of dust.

So we kept the three things worth keeping, which were competition, camaraderie and connection, and threw out the rest. The foam did something we didn't plan for. Rallies stretched to 30, 40, 50 shots. Matches stayed close. Grandparents started beating grandkids. The guy who doesn't do games started demanding best of seven.

Then life threw me a harder match. In 2016 I got sober. Toughest rally of my life, and the most important one I'll ever win. It reminded me what I actually valued, which was real people and real laughter. By 2020, in a world starving for connection, I decided to bring The Game to the world. Not for profit. For purpose.

People ask whether I went on Shark Tank to raise money or to market the game. Neither. I went to talk about declining human connection. Pepper Pong just happens to be one joyful way to solve it.

That's the job here. Turn every table into center court, and every gathering into a tournament of unforgettable moments.

Tom Filippini, Founder

Where we are

Six years ago this was a foam ball bouncing around a garage, surviving on 100-plus design iterations and 20-plus factory prototypes. On 22 November 2024 it aired on Shark Tank, Todd Graves came on as a partner, and Tom repaid his entire investment inside the first business hour.

Since then we have sold more than 100,000 sets, people have played over a million games, and we sold out three times in three months. You can find us in Dick's Sporting Goods and Scheels, and we ship to all 50 states. Reviews sit at 4.9 stars and under 1% of sets ever come back, which for something most people buy as a gift is the number we are quietly proudest of.

Where we're going

Right now Pepper Pong is a product. The plan is to make it a sport.

That starts with the app, which ships this year. Set a phone on the table and it runs the bracket, keeps score, and turns the result into a ranking you can actually climb. It is probably the first app ever designed not to be sticky, on the grounds that every second you spend looking at it is a second you are not playing. The long joke we are engineering is a grandmother who plays every Sunday outranking someone who does this professionally.

Around that sits a creator program, a growing retail business, and Rally for Recovery, which has put more than 1,000 sets into recovery centers and community spaces across all 50 states. That one is not marketing. It is where the game came from.

How we work

We are small, so the roles are wide and nobody is going to hand you a brief. You get a number that is yours and enough room to go get it, which is the good news and the bad news in one sentence. We move quickly, we use AI heavily and without ceremony, and we would rather hear the thing that didn't work at the start of the meeting than at the end of the quarter.

The role

We are seeking a Customer Success Rep to be the first person our customers talk to. You will own our inbox across email, chat, and social, resolving order issues, answering product questions, and making sure every person who reaches out leaves better off than when they arrived.

This role is ideal for someone patient and genuinely warm who takes pride in a clean queue and wants to become the person who knows our customer better than anyone else in the company.

Why this role matters right now

Most of our customers are buying this as a gift, often for someone they do not get to see very often, and usually against a deadline. That raises the stakes on every reply you send. Under 1% of sets come back, and the reason that number holds is that somebody answers quickly and fixes things properly. In Q4 that somebody is you.

What You'll Do

  • Respond to customer inquiries across email, chat, and social within our target response times
  • Resolve order issues end to end, including shipping exceptions, damages, replacements, and returns
  • Answer product questions about gameplay, ball speeds, set contents, and compatibility
  • Process refunds, replacements, and warranty claims according to policy, and flag anything outside it
  • Track recurring issues and report themes to the wider team so the underlying problem gets fixed
  • Keep help center articles and saved replies accurate as products and policies change
  • Support post-purchase moments including review requests, gifting questions, and holiday order deadlines

Must-Have Requirements

  • 1-3 years in customer support, customer success, or a service role at a consumer brand
  • Excellent written English and the ability to sound like a person rather than a script
  • Experience with a helpdesk platform such as Gorgias, Zendesk, Gladly, or Help Scout
  • Comfort working inside Shopify to look up orders, issue refunds, and edit fulfillments
  • Strong attention to detail and the discipline to keep a queue clean without being chased
  • Calm judgment with frustrated customers and a bias toward solving rather than deflecting
  • Availability to cover elevated volume during Q4 and major promotional periods